One Piece: Starting with Kenpachi Zaraki's Legacy

Lin Xuan's palm pierced straight through the chest Arlong had been so proud of, meeting no resistance.

He called out no move name and wasted no words. It was pure violence.

The heart that had cast a shadow over all of Cocoyasi Village for eight years stopped beating in Lin Xuan's hand.

With a casual toss, Lin Xuan flung the towering Fish-Man's corpse aside. Blood splashed onto the nearby Arlong Park sign, looking especially jarring.

"Keep that money to buy yourself a coffin."

Lin Xuan shook the blood off his hand and turned around. His gaze passed through the Marines, already petrified with fear, and locked precisely onto Captain Nezumi, who was preparing to slip away.

His eyes had locked onto his prey.

"Ah!"

Captain Nezumi screamed. His dignity as a captain and the hundred million Beli had vanished from his mind.

He shoved aside the men blocking his way and scrambled toward the gate.

"Stop him! Shoot! Whoever kills him gets promoted to ensign!"

He shouted as he ran, but the Marines could barely hold their guns steady now. None dared fire at a monster even bullets couldn't penetrate.

Watching that fleeing figure, Lin Xuan curled his lip in boredom.

"Too far. Can't be bothered to run."

He glanced down at his feet. A standard-issue sword dropped by a Marine during the melee lay there.

The instant his fingers touched its hilt, that mechanical voice sounded in his mind.

[Ding!

Host detected killing key storyline boss Arlong, causing a Worst Generation-level shock.]

[Kenpachi Zaraki template integration increased to 15%.]

[Hidden reward triggered: subordinate template unlocked early-Scissor Seven (Shadow Assassin form).]

[Exclusive skill acquired: Qi-Controlled Sword (beginner).]

The world seemed to slow down in that instant.

A strange warmth flowed in through his fingertips. Unlike the raging Spiritual Pressure already inside him, this power was delicate and sharp, as though it could extend his will into objects.

Lin Xuan looked at the ordinary sword beside his feet and stirred his mind slightly.

The sword actually floated up on its own, its tip turning to point straight at the fleeing Marine's back.

"This feeling... kind of interesting."

A playful curve lifted the corner of Lin Xuan's mouth. He casually swept out two fingers of his right hand.

Whoosh-!

The sword instantly became a streak of silver light, moving so fast it tore a wave through the air.

The blade cut through the air, heading straight for Captain Nezumi's heart from behind!

As he ran, Captain Nezumi felt the icy killing intent behind him. He turned his head, only able to watch as that silver light rapidly expanded in his pupils.

"No!"

Just as the blade's tip came within ten centimeters of Captain Nezumi's back, about to pin him dead to the ground-

A cloud of white smoke suddenly surged in from outside the gate.

The smoke instantly gathered into an enormous white fist and slammed into the side of the flying sword at an even greater speed.

Clang!!!

A tremendous metallic crash rang out.

The lethal blade was forcibly knocked off course. It skimmed past Captain Nezumi's ear and buried itself deep in a stone pillar nearby, all the way to the hilt.

The shock wave knocked Captain Nezumi to the ground. His crotch instantly grew wet, and he went limp as mud, panting heavily as though he had just narrowly escaped death.

Lin Xuan raised an eyebrow. His gaze passed over the limp Captain Nezumi and settled on the slowly dispersing white smoke.

A man wearing a Justice Coat walked in from behind the smoke. He had silver hair, two cigars clenched in his mouth, and his signature Jitte in hand. His expression was grim.

Behind him stood neatly arranged ranks of Marines, every one of them brimming with killing intent.

Chapter 38: Hey, how much longer are you going to lie there?

The thick smoke, enough to choke an elephant to death, did not disperse. Instead, it writhed and expanded in the air like a living thing.

Lin Xuan raised a hand and fanned it in front of his nose, frowning slightly.

Two entirely different smells mingled together: the sulfurous smell of cheap gunpowder and the rich, bitter scent of cigar tobacco.

"Cough, cough..."

Captain Nezumi scrambled to prop his upper body off the ground, his face covered in the cold sweat of a narrow escape. He glanced back in terror at the sword embedded in the stone pillar, then looked at the tall figure standing in front of him. His shattered courage instantly stitched itself back together.

"Captain Smoker, it's you!" Nezumi shrieked hoarsely. "Quick, arrest this lunatic! Never mind that he killed Arlong and wants to kill me, but he actually dared openly attack the Marines! This is rebellion! This is a declaration of war against the World Government!"

The man called Smoker ignored the racket behind him. He merely clenched his two thick cigars between his teeth as gray smoke slowly spilled from his neck and sleeves, making the surrounding air thick and murky.

Through the drifting smoke, Smoker's hawk-sharp eyes locked firmly onto Lin Xuan.

"Since when did the East Blue produce a monster rookie like this?" Smoker's voice was low and hoarse, like sandpaper scraping across a tabletop. "That kind of power, born purely for destruction... kid, give me your name."

Lin Xuan was in no hurry to answer. He merely tilted his head, looking past Smoker's broad shoulders at Nezumi, who was inching toward the gate.

The sensation was peculiar.

The newly integrated Scissor Seven template had brought his body an entirely different experience.

If Kenpachi Zaraki's power was a rampaging beast, then what he felt now was like a bottomless pool of stagnant water.

Calm, precision, and a subtle sensation that let him extend his thoughts into inanimate objects.

"I asked you a question."

As Lin Xuan ignored him, Smoker's gaze sharpened. His right arm abruptly transformed into its element, becoming an enormous fist of white smoke that shot straight at Lin Xuan's face with a howling rush of wind.

"White Fist."

The attack was extremely fast and covered an enormous area.

Yet the instant before the smoke fist touched the tip of Lin Xuan's nose, a spine-chilling cold descended without warning.

It was killing intent condensed to the utmost.

Every Marine present, even the battle-hardened Smoker, felt in that instant as though an icy hand had clenched hard around his heart.

The surrounding temperature seemed to plunge to freezing, and even the dust drifting through the air seemed suspended in place.

At the center of that terrifying pressure, Lin Xuan's eyes had turned scarlet at some unknown point.

Lin Xuan did not dodge Smoker's attack. He merely raised two fingers slightly and gently beckoned toward the distance.

"I said that money was for a coffin. How could I let you save it?"

The boy's voice was as soft as if he were speaking to himself, yet it reached everyone's ears clearly.

Bzz-

A shrill metallic vibration suddenly erupted behind Smoker.

Smoker's pupils contracted sharply. Instinctively, he tried to disperse into his elemental form, but that object was simply too fast-it was the saber Captain Nezumi had discarded by the wayside earlier.

Guided by Qi-Controlled Sword, that ordinary military saber seemed to become a bolt of purple lightning.

It did not travel in a straight line. Instead, it traced a bizarre arc that defied common physics, instantly circling around Smoker's enormous smoke body.

Shhk.

The sound of the blade entering flesh was so faint it was almost inaudible, yet it plunged the entire noisy battlefield into dead silence.

Captain Nezumi, who had been quietly edging toward the entrance, suddenly stiffened.

He lowered his head and stared in disbelief at the bloodstained blade tip protruding from his chest.

The blade had pierced his heart with absolute precision, without the slightest deviation.

"Urgh... how..."

Two muffled, blood-choked sounds escaped Captain Nezumi's throat. The greed and fear in his eyes rapidly faded. He reached out to grasp something, but his hand ultimately dropped limply, and he collapsed to the ground like a puddle of mud, never making another sound.

Only then did the hovering saber drop beside the corpse with a clang, as though it had completed its mission.

Smoker stood frozen in his punching stance. The smoke attacking Lin Xuan slowly dispersed, revealing his livid face.

Right in front of him.

Past his defenses.

Right under his nose, he had killed the man Smoker meant to protect.

It was a blatant slap in the face, an open trampling of Marine justice.

"You..." Smoker slowly turned to look at Nezumi's corpse, then whipped his head back around, veins bulging on his neck. The white smoke covering his body churned violently as though boiling. "Do you know what you're doing? Even if he was scum, it was for the Court-Martial to judge him, not a lawless pirate like you."

"A pirate?"

The scarlet in Lin Xuan's eyes gradually faded, returning to their lazy black. He rolled his neck, producing sharp cracks, seemingly fairly satisfied with the precision of that strike.

"Don't go throwing labels around, you big chain-smoker. I've never flown a pirate flag or stolen so much as a needle or thread from civilians."

Lin Xuan bent down and picked a fairly intact wooden stick out of the debris scattered across the ground-it was a mop handle someone had dropped during the battle. Its head had already broken off, leaving only a bare, round shaft.

Lin Xuan casually swung the shabby weapon to test its feel, then raised his eyes to the furious Smoker.

"You Marines, on the other hand, let a rat like this prey on the villagers for eight years without doing a thing, and now you come running out to preach due process? Since your court was asleep, I helped clean house for you while I was at it. No need to thank me."

Combined with his nonchalant attitude, those words grated even more than vicious mockery.

"Twisted sophistry."

Smoker laughed in fury. He abruptly drew the Jitte from his back, and his entire body instantly became an enormous white storm.

"Since you're determined to die, don't blame me for showing no mercy. White Vine."

White smoke instantly blanketed the ground for dozens of meters around.

This was no ordinary smoke, but an extension of Smoker's tangible body.

The smoke was thick and heavy. Not only did it obscure vision, it also coiled toward Lin Xuan from every direction like conscious tentacles, attempting to restrain his limbs.

"It may not be Seastone, but within this 'white smoke domain,' your monstrous strength is useless." Smoker's voice came from every direction, making his position impossible to distinguish. "Surrender."

Lin Xuan stood amid the sea of white, surrounded by a constantly tightening cage of smoke.

His vision was blocked, and his hearing was disrupted as well.

An ordinary person facing a Logia user like this would probably have lost the will to resist long ago.

But Lin Xuan merely stood where he was, feeling the oppressive sensation of being restrained. Instead, his mouth slowly spread into a somewhat savage grin.

That feeling had returned.

The Kenpachi Zaraki within him roared, yearning to tear apart every obstacle before him; meanwhile, the newly acquired Seven template made his senses extraordinarily sharp, allowing him to precisely catch that faint thread of flowing "qi" within the chaotic smoke.

"Useless?"

Lin Xuan tightened his grip on the mop handle.

Armament Haki instantly coiled around it like black ink, staining the ordinary wooden stick the pitch-black color of steel.

"There's nothing in this world that can't be cut."

Lin Xuan closed his eyes, crouched slightly, and assumed a simple stance to gather his strength.

The instant before Smoker's Jitte struck the back of his head-

Lin Xuan moved.

There was no fancy technique, just a powerful, straightforward sweep.

"Get out here."

Boom-!!!

That sweeping strike stirred up more than wind pressure. It carried a terrifying force that seemed ready to cleave space itself apart.